Automatic inking device for printing presses



April 13,1926. 1,580,829

.A. L. LENGEL AUTOMATIC INKING DEVICE FOR PRINTING PRESSES Filed June 9 1924 Patented Apr. 13, 1926.

UNITED STATES ALBEBT L. LENGEL, OF BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA.

AUTOMATIC INKIN G DEVICE FOR PRINTING PRESSES.

Application filed June 9, 1924. Serial No. 718,802.

effect of pressing on a steel blade, which in.

turn controls the flow of ink presented to the doctor rollers which in turn transfers ing to inking surfaces. This fiow of ink is necessarily readjusted every time the form is changed due to the difference in makeup of the forms, and to the unequal demand for ink on any form. Also this adjustment must continue to be manipulated with varying speeds.

My object is to provide means that will set color automatically, in that a perfect film of ink will be presented to the char. acters to be printed, such depths of film to be the color desired for successive or di versified consecutive forms or plates, as be forehand determined and so set, and not being again necessary of readustment until such wear of roller surfaces or possible shrinkage of warping of vitalparts makes a realigmnent of the fountain blade necessary, to produce the depth of color desired for consecutive diversified printing forms or plates.

Other objects and advantages will be made manifest in the following specification of an embodiment of the invention illustrated in the accompanying drawing wherein:

Figure 1. is a diagrammatic view showing the improved inking mechanism with a transfer roller between the fountain roller and the form cylinder;

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary diagrammatic perspective of the fountain shown in Fig. 1, with special reference to the scraper, screen and return trough for the transfer roller.

The form cylinder 1 engages the impression cylinder 2 in the usual Way, and the web 3 to be printed runs between the form cylinder" 1 and the impression cylinder 2, the cylinders rotating in the directions indicated by the arrows 4 and 5. The transfer roller 6 engages the form cylinder 1 and a sun roller 7. The distributing rollers 8 and 9 engage the sun roller 7 and are smaller in diameter than the transfer roller 6. The distributing rollers 10 and 11 engage the sun rollers 7 and are smaller in diameter than the rollers 8 and 9. The finishing roller 12 engages the'sun rollers 7 and the form cylinder 1.' The form cylinder land the sun roller 7 are gear driven in the usual way and the rollers 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 are friction driven in the usual way. The several rollers rotate in the directions indicated by the arrows on the rollers.

The ink is delivered from the fountain 13 through a transfer roller 14, as shown in Fig. 1. The fountain roller 16 is a smooth steel roller gear driven, and the transfer roller 14 is an ordinary soft roller driven by friction. The set up shown in Fig. 1 is preferable for fine wor The ink fountains 13 are variable in width to fit various presses. Reinforcing posts 17 are used to support the fountain cover 18 and the fountain cover supports the temper blade 19, said blade being tightly bolted between the fountain cover and the adjusting screw board, and the blade extends freely from the cover to the roller and is more or less elastic and the temper or pressure of the blade upon the roller is reg ulated by adjusting screws 20. The reinforcing posts 17 may be about twelve inches apart and the adjusting screws 20 about two inches apart and extend the 'full length of the fountain.

The rough film of ink received by the printing characters upon-the form cylinder 1, either from the fountain roller 16 through the transfer roller 14, immediately comes in contact with and is picked up by the heavy duty transfer roller 6, and the over supply of ink is carried to the sun roller 7 and worked upon by the rollers 8, 9, 10 and'll, and ultimately returned to the form cylinder 1 by the roller 12, and all of this working of the ink is done before the inked forms upon the cylinder 1 reach the web 3. One advantage of this arrangement is that the foun tains may be set to deliver a sufficient or over supply of ink direct to the forms upon the cylinder 1 and the over supply is worked over, whereas if the fountains delivered the time to raise the color upon the forms to' the desired point.

It is desirable that the various friction driven rollers be of different relative diameters and vibrated at different speeds so that the ink will be thoroughly spread and distributed. The diagrams show mechanism for printing only one side of the web 3, it being understood that the mechanism for printing the other side of the web would be a mere duplication of that shown. A scraper blade 21 is mounted and adjusted in a manner similar to the temper blade 19 is mounted to deliver the scraped ink Back into the fountain 13.

An inclined trough 22 is mounted below the scraper blade 21, a screen 23 covers the trough to catchthe dirt and the ink passing down the scraper blade will pass through the screen 23 into the trough 22 and run to one end of the trough past the-end of the temper blade 19 into the fountain. The screen serves to keep the ink in the fountain clean and the screen may be removed from time to time to be cleaned.

ere it is necessary to set color after a press run is on the press, as is now the case, the advantages of being able to produce a perfectly colored product with the first impressions, thussaving considerable time in slow running until the color. can be set, can readily be seen. This improvement results in also improving the appearance of the product and saving of much waste and poorly printed products, and producing perfectly colored printing all through a run of any len h; whereas now the coloring must be continually touched up even after the press has been running for some time, due to the natural tendency of present methods to gather dirt or surfaces, to intermittent introduction of ink, and to the lower ink level in the fountains as the run progresses. Also, I accomplish a saving in man power, heretofore required to keep color set, and insure a perfect color effect on all pages of a product, impossible to secure by hand set- It is to be understood that the web 3 ma be a sheet of any suitable material to be printed. 7 Thus I have produced an inking system comprisin an ink fountain, means for feeding ink om the fountain to a printing cylinder, a transfer roller in contact with the cylinder, said cylinder rotating from the fountain towards the transfer roller, a sun roller in contact with the transfer roller, a plurality of distributing rollers in contact with the sun roller, and a finishing roller in contact with the sun roller and with the cylinder at the opposite side of the distributing roller from the fountain, so that plenty of ink is applied to the printing cylinder by the fountain, the surplus gobs of ink taken from the printing cylinder by the transfer roller and worked upon the sun roller and carried back to the printing cylinder by the finishing roller, all before the grinting face reaches the impression cylin- In the construction shown in Fig. 1 the steel fountain roller 16 is effective in picking up an even quantity of ink. The use of the transfer roller 14 allows a steel roller to be used in the fountain as the transfer roller oan be made of a soft face to engage the and bears against the transfer roller 14 and form cylinder 1. Thus an even transfer of the ink from the fountain to the form cylinder is had in the construction shown in Fig. 1. In addition to this, the soft transfer roller picks up the pressure lint from the form cylinder effectively and may be scraped by the scraper blade 21 in addition to the fountain roller being scraped by the temper blade 19. The sun and planet rollers re-work the ink which has already undergone the additional step of being worked by the transfer roller. As in printing, the different parts of the form cylinder require different thicknesses of film of ink in accordance with the different types of surfaces, such as large or small pictures, close print, blank spaces, etc. Therefore, the transfer roller in working the ink together with the transfer roller 6, the sun roller '7 and the system of distributing rollers 8, 9, 10 and 11 together with the final action of the finishing roller 12 more evenly distributes the ink film and supplies it in the proper consistency to the form cylinder before the latter makes an inking impression on the paper.

Various changes may be made without departing from the spirit of the invention as claime D I claim:

1. An inking device comprising, in combination, an ink fountain, a hard surfaced fountain roller dipping therein from above the surface of the ink, a transferroller positioned above the fountain roller and in engagement therewith, said transfer roller having a soft surface, a form cylinder above y the transfer roller and bearing thereagainst,

means to press a web to be printed against the form cylinder, and rollers in contact with the form cylinder positioned to engage therewith between the transfer roller and the position of printing ink distributing in the direction of rotation of the form cylinder.

2. An inking device as claimed in claim 1 having in addition a sun roller engaging the distributing rollers and positioned out of contact with the form cylinder, said sun roller being adapted to rework the ink transferred from the transfer roller to the form cyllnder and from the form cylinder to the distributing rollers.

3. An inking device as claimed in claim 1 bination, an ink fountain, a fountain roll therein, a transfer roll in contact with the fountain roll, a form cylinder in contact with the transfer roll, an impression cylinder positioned to press a web against the form cylinder, ink distributing rolls bearing against the form cylinder between the transfer roller and the impression cylinder in the direction of rotation of the form cylinder, and a scraper blade bearing against the transfer roller and having means to screen the ink and deliver the screened ink to the ink fountain.

5. A printing device comprising, in combination, an ink fountain, a fountain roll therein, a transfer roll in contact with the fountain roll, a form cylinder in contact with the transfer roll, an impression cylinder positioned to press a web against the form cylinder, ink distributing rolls bearing against the form cylinder between the transfer roller and the impression cylinder in the direction of rotation of the form cylinder, a sun roller bearing "against the distributing rollers and having a series of secondary distributing rollers, said latter being out of contact with the form cylinder and having a scraper blade in contact with the transfer roller, a trough connected with said blade and leading to the ink fountain, and means to screen the ink.

6. In an inking device, an ink fountain, a

fountain roller therein, a transfer roller bearing thereon, a temper blade bearing on the fountain roller, a scraper blade bearing on the transfer roller, a trough below the scraper blade leading to the ink fountainand means to screen the ink.

7. In an inking device as claimed in claim 6, having. said blades supported from the ink fountain and means to vary the tension of said blades.

' 8. An inking system comprising, in combination, an ink fountain, a hard surfaced fountain roller dipping therein, a soft surfaced transfer roller' positioned thereabove and in contact with the, fountain roller, a printing cylinder above the transfer roller and in contact therewith, a sun roller out of contact with the printing cylinder, a second transfer roller positioned between the cylinder and the sun roller, a series of distributing rollers engaging the sun roller, a finishing roller engaging the sun roller and bearing against the cylinder in proximity to the second. transfer roller, and an impression cylinder in engagement with the printing cylinder, said impression cylinder being positioned beyond the set of transfer rollers,

sun and distributing rollers in the direction of rotation of the printing cylinder, whereby the ink is worked between the first transfer roller, the second transfer roller, the sun, distributing and finishing rollers before the engagement of the printing and impression cylinders.

9. A printing device comprising, in combination, an ink fountain, a fountain roll dipping therein, a transfer roller in contact with the fountain roll, a'form cylinder in contact with the transfer roller, an impression cylinder positioned to press a web against the form cylinder,- and a scraper blade bearing against the transfer roller and having means to screen the ink and deliver the screened ink to the ink fountain.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

ALBERT L. l JENGEL. 

